James Milroy: Some new perspectives on sound change: sociolinguistics and the Neogrammarians.

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Answer the following questions using the book and other sources.

1.- Why does Milroy say that sound change appears to have no “obvious function or rational motivation” (146)?

He says that sound change is the most strange language change because it has not a real logical function. He says that they don’t have a function because they don’t make that the language progresses. It is, with them there’s not an improvement, but there’s not a deterioration of the language either.

2.- What is/are the main difference/s between Milroy’s approach and that of the Neogrammarians (147-148)?

The difference is that Milroy studies Language taking in consideration the speakers, it is, the context. Neogrammarians don’t think about speakers in their theories, they only take into account the language, as a formal structured system. Other difference is that Milroy thinks that language is better studied in bilinguals states. In contrast, Neogrammarians think that a Monolingual state should be better to study the linguistic. Those differences might be related to the three basic characteristics of the Neogrammarians: Dichotomy, Non-social character and written sources.

3.- According to Milroy, what is language change dependent on? (149?)

“The degree to which the change is admitted will depend on the degree of internal cohesion in the community, and change from outside will be admitted to the extent that there are large numbers of “weak ties” with outsiders.” James Milroy

4.- Why does Milroy say that sound change actually doesn’t exist (150)?

Sound change doesn’t really exist because it is not change. It is a replacement. “A whole dialect can die out as another dialect replaces it”

5.- Why does Milroy disagree with the Neogrammarians when they say that sound change is “blind” (150)?

For Milroy, sound change is not blind because it is based on the relation between speakers, so he is not agree with this.

6.- What is meant by “lexical diffusion” (151)?

Lexical diffusion consists on the fact that some phonological rule goes extending slowly, from a short part of the lexicon to another bigger, until all relevant items have been transformed by the process. The theory of lexical diffusion stands in contrast to the Neogrammarian hypothesis that a given sound change applies simultaneously to all words in which its context is found.

7.- What does dialect displacement mean? Give an example. (152)

Dialect displacement is the displacement of one dialect by another which is dominant at a particular time. Milroy give us an example: the West Midland dialects of Middle English displaced by East Midland dialects

8.- What are “community” or “vernacular” norms? What term that we have used in class is similar (152)?

Community or vernacular norms are those which are observed by speakers and maintained by communities often in opposition to standardizing norms. We know about the vernacular norms because we can recognize different dialects of a language.  Maybe the “wave theory”.

9.- What does Milroy mean when he says that h-dropping may not ever reach “completion” (153)?

He is talking about the possibility of making it normative, due to the continuous use of it in the English language.

10.- Explain what Milroy means by “speaker innovation” and change in the system. How are they connected (153)?

Innovation and change should reflect a conceptual distinction: innovation is an act of the speaker, whereas a change is manifested within the language system. An innovation must be unstructured and “irregular” and not describable by quantitative or statistical methods. They are connected because the change depends on the innovation. You can’t implant one without the other.

11.- Why isn’t borrowing from one language to another and the replacement of one sound by another through speaker innovation with a language as radically different

as the Neogrammarians posited (154-6)?

The sound change /borrowing is sometimes formulated as a distinction between “internally” and “externally” motivated change.

12.- What is necessary for a sound to spread (157)?

The spread of sounds can result from borrowing or a sudden replacement of one trill by another.

13.- Why does believing in the ideology of standardization lead to believing in “blind necessity” (158)?

The careful is the main factor to create a standard language. They are nor normal, so their construction is more slow. The ideology of standardization causes people to believe that they are indeed discrete physical entities.

14.- What does Milroy mean by “clean” and “dirty” data (158)?

Milroy talks about clean data to those normalized, it is, of a standard language. The dirty data are those belonging to the irregular or vernacular languages.